Bangladesh and the Blue Economy: Its Feasibility, Prospects, Challenges and Solutions

Blue Economy of Bangladesh

Abstract

Blue Economy as a concept has gone from being a buzzword addressing ambitions for incentivizing the oceans and marine resources, to being implemented into policies and being a key priority of nations worldwide. The prerequisite for which is sustainable use of the oceans while maintaining environmental integrity. Most coastal countries are naturally in a favorable position to take full advantage of their marine resources within their jurisdiction of EEZs. Bangladesh, a country with a coastline of 710 kilometers, its allotted 200 nautical miles, and rights over the continental shelf area of 1,83,613 square kilometers, is at an advantage for proliferating its blue economic endeavors. The sole purpose of this paper was to generate objective and straightforward solutions based on prospects and challenges of the blue economy, exclusively from the lens of Bangladesh, which includes its abundant marine life, its richness in precious metals and minerals, untapped offshore oil/gas reserves, marine-derived pharmaceuticals, the promising tourism sector and much more. The paper integrated substantial data from various existing literature exclusive to the oceans/blue economy. The data derived from the previous researches were then integrated into the paper to discuss the blue economic prospects for Bangladesh, and how ambitious the country can realistically become. The prospects were then followed by addressing key existing challenges the country needs to tackle to further expand its oceans economy sectors. Finally, the paper reaches its zenith of sharing its set of recommendations Bangladesh may integrate as national policies for public-private economic collaborations, strengthening bilateral and multilateral agreements between key investor/friendly nations, reaching objective solutions, focusing primarily on emboldening the blue economy sectors of Bangladesh.